It may have taken eight episodes, but The Bad Batch has finally begun some long-form storytelling. Episodes 9, 10, and 11 have done what I’ve wished for this entire season, a cohesive story. Even though the stories of each episode can be self-contained, they lead directly into each other in a way that got me excited for each new episode. These episodes also finally advance a storyline from over a decade ago that I thought had been forgotten.
Episode 9, titled “The Crossing,” starts like so many previous episodes, with the batch going on a job. After the first few minutes, you’d think this would just be another adventure of the week that doesn’t advance anything. That’s not the case because we instead get one of the best character-building episodes the series has ever had. After Echo’s departure at the end of Episode 8, we get to see how the members of the bad batch deal with it, mostly Omega and Tech. This episode gives us a deeper look at how these characters come to terms with the change and, in turn, grow closer together. I don’t have the time to get into it too much here, but it was one of the more impactful parts of the series so far. The episode ends with the bad batch’s ship stolen, and that’s where Episode 10 begins.
Titled “Retrieval,” this episode picks up right where Episode 9 left off, with the squad down a ship. The plot of this episode was enjoyable enough, especially with Cid starting to show her true colours (by refusing to help them initially). You also have the child slave labour-powered mine operation, which is par for the course (I don’t really know why this is the case). However, my favourite part of this episode was the new characters voiced by two of my favourite voice actors. There’s the ship thief Benni, voiced by the legendary Yuri Lowenthal (aka Spider-Man in the PS4/PS5 games). Then you have the character Drake voiced by Aleks Le of Demon Slayer fame (Zenitsu). I never thought either of these two would be in Star Wars, and I was surprised/ecstatic when I heard them. The episode ends with the literal fat cat boss of the mine falling to his death after the workers turn on him. The bad batch gets their shuttle back and leaves, presumably to give Cid a piece of their minds.
Episode 11 caps off this batch of episodes, and it’s one of the best yet. Titled “Metamorphosis,” this episode not only moves the overall plot of The Bad Batch forward but also brings back a plot line from The Clone Wars. The episode begins with a sequence straight out of Alien: Isolation, with a Clone desperately trying to escape the creature hunting him on the transport ship. It obviously ends poorly, and the ship crashes. The team learns of this from Cid (whom they’re seriously considering leaving) and head out to investigate. After some shenanigans on the crashed ship, the bad batch encounters the familiar-looking creature.
After further shenanigans, the creature escapes the ship and eats energy from the nearby power station. After chilling there for a little bit, the previously unknown alien turns into the FRICKEN ZILLO BEAST! Having not appeared since Season 2 of The Clone Wars, I thought they had forgotten about this little guy. Turns out Dave Filoni didn’t forget about this plotline and was casually waiting over a decade to continue it. Add in some evil scientists, a turncoat Prime Minister, and implied murder of civilians, and you have one of the season’s best episodes.
Episodes 9, 10, and 11 of The Bad Batch finally pick up the pace of the series. With episodes that flow from one to another, exciting new characters, and returning plot lines, the series is finally hitting its stride. After these three episodes, I’m even more excited for the remaining five and how they’ll hopefully tie everything together (I still think this will all lead to Snoke somehow). I just hope we don’t have to wait another 15 years for the conclusion of the Zillo Beast story.
Have you seen the latest episodes of The Bad Batch? What did you think? Did you expect the Zillo Beast? Let us know in the comments below where we can talk about which other anime voice actors should make random cameos in Star Wars.
